David Carman

Background

About David Carman

I am a medical doctor with 20 years of experience in building secure Linux-based systems that capture and assimilate health data from any data resource or machine into comprehensive patient records, with mobile web interfaces, for use in clinical care and facility management, specifically in remote and under-serviced areas. Information technology can save time or waste time. It can enhance or diminish efficiency. The same system can be helpful in one setting, and a hindrance in the next. The two most significant determinants of which it will be are data exchange with other systems (interoperability), and the interface between it and its users (UX). Medical devices are notorious for lack of interoperability with equipment from different manufacturers. Even when standards like HL/7 are used, they often deviate just enough to ensure that they cannot interface with competitor systems, similar to how Microsoft disadvantaged Lotus and Netscape in the 90s. I have become adept at extracting data from any device, database or web resource, and mapping it to appropriate standards, and integrating it with data from other sources. Clinicians are unique users with specific needs, and health IT systems seldom accommodate them. Clinicians are pressured into clerical duties when their time and skills are better spent elsewhere. Clinicians should be able to access everything they need from a health IT system from their phone, on the move. Input required from them should be limited to what only they can determine, and accepted in any form they choose, whether it be audio, photographic or a custom shorthand interface designed for them. I have spent years working as a clinician and working with clinicians in myriad clinical scenarios. I write mail, web and mobile app interfaces that integrate artfully with their work environment, rather than impose themselves, easing clinician workload rather than adding to it.